It's a start
by Spyrella
Summary: This thing with Wright would keep him here longer than he thought.


**Title:** It's a start (if nothing else)  
**Rating:** G  
**Pairings/Characters:** Phoenix/Miles  
**Warnings:** slash, obviously =)  
**Word Count: **~ 1,000

He had intended to return for one week, and then jet back off to Europe for the foreseeable future. Then one week had turned to two when Franziska appeared.

"Leaving so soon, little brother?"

Then there'd been a murder trial. Obviously. When wasn't there a murder trial? Another week.

"Prosecutor Edgeworth, sir! We can't do it without you!"

"Of course you can't," he'd sighed in reply. He was beginning to believe that Detective Gumshoe had been murdering people himself, just to keep him there.

Then Manfred von Karma had finally been called to atone for his sins on death row. He'd been there in attendance, holding Franziska, who certainly hadn't sobbed into his shoulder afterwards. Another two weeks.

Then there was another murder case. He hadn't been fit to go back to work yet, that was all too clear after the fact. Wright had been there, with his warmth and his kindness, without pity and usually without words.

A hand on his shoulder.

And then another trouncing in the law court.

Afterwards, he'd felt tired and empty. He'd known the truth before the end of the trial, and knew Wright well enough to know he wouldn't take a false victory. Still, he would have preferred a different truth.

He also knew Wright well enough to have predicted that he would approach him after the trial. Miles was ill prepared for the sudden increase of his heart rate, and the way his stomach tied itself in knots.

"Are you all right, Edgeworth?" Wright was already steering him towards a chair. "You look kind of ill…"

Miles shook his head. "I'm fine… I…" And apparently his tongue had tied itself in knots also.

"Too soon, huh?" Wright offered a wan smile and, when he felt some of the colour leaving his face, a hand back to his feet.

Miles resisted the unusual urge to hold onto that hand for longer than necessary, and instead dropped it as if he were on fire.

"I don't know about you, but I could do with a drink after that hell," Wright said, gesturing to the doorway.

Three days of investigation and then trial, and then investigating what had gone wrong with the previous trial, and then more trial, and then more investigation, and finally knowing that everything you'd investigated had come to naught. It was definitely what Miles considered hell on earth.

But drinking, with noise and people, was exactly what he didn't want. He looked apologetically at his sometime-adversary, and Wright shrugged.

He just wanted to go home and watch Steel Samurai reruns with Pess. 'And Phoenix,' a little voice in his mind added. He flushed again, and leant heavily on the prosecutors' bench.

"Some other time then," Wright said, not commenting upon his odd behaviour, to Miles' relief. Instead, in one smooth movement, he pulled a business card from an unseen pocket, and scrawled his mobile phone number on the back of it.

A hand squeezed his shoulder, and the other pressed the card into his hand. And then Wright was gone.

For the rest of the day, he found himself fingering the card in his pocket without thinking, and occasionally pulling it out to look at. The card was unlike his; Wright's was simple and uncluttered.

_Phoenix Wright_

_Defence Attorney_

And his office number.

Miles smiled to himself. Simple on the outside, with his plain font and white background, but behind the blue suit was something else entirely. Phoenix didn't need fancy business cards, when he had himself. His reputation for honesty and a knack for finding the truth rarely called guilty clients to his door, whilst he was actively feared in the courtroom.

He set the card down on the table, noticing that he'd already bent it around the edges. He frowned when he realised how much time he'd spent holding it, and thinking about Wright in so short an amount of time.

'It's been a rough few days, and it's comforting having something tangible from a good friend to hold onto when things are becoming too stressful,' he reasoned with himself.

'Ha, is it me, or are your bluffing skills becoming worse?' He was disturbed to find that the voice in his head sounded just like Wright.

'Why else would I be doing it?' he wondered to himself.

'Maybe you just like touching me,' the Wright in his head laughed. He couldn't stop himself from imagining, just for a moment, what it would be like to touch the real Phoenix. The mental image of his friend stretched out across his bed refused to go away, and even though he was alone, he found himself turning red.

"Oh god, this can't be happening," he muttered aloud. He'd somehow convinced himself through the stress of the week that he was infatuated by his closest friend –

('Only friend,' his mind chimed in.)

– and through his exhaustion, he couldn't let go of the idea. That was all. He'd phone Phoenix, and arrange to meet for drinks, and he'd realise that he'd been wrong all along. Phoenix was still just his friend, and he was instead attracted to cool, logical men, not passionate, warm, sometime-geniuses.

He ran his thumb along Phoenix's phone number. He grabbed his phone and dialled quickly, before he lost his nerve.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Wright."

"Edgeworth, are you all right?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Miles asked, suspiciously.

A short laugh. "It's half past two in the morning. I guess it's true – demon prosecutors never sleep."

Shocked, Miles glanced into the kitchen. His clock confirmed the lateness of the hour.

"I apologise, it was not my intention to wake you," he said, quickly. He thought suddenly of Phoenix in bed, hair mussed, chest bare, and talking to him on the phone. He bit his lip – talking to the object of his temporarily misplaced affections was not doing him any good.

"Don't worry about it," Phoenix told him, "I don't intend to get up early for at least a few days after that damned trial. Half a week off will do me a world of good."

Miles snorted. "You are bone idle, Wright." On the other end of the phone he heard a soft hum of amusement. "But if you're not working for the rest of the week, you should be free to have lunch with me tomorrow."

"I… uh, yeah, that'd be great!" He told himself that it was Phoenix's enthusiasm that made him smile and feel warm inside, not the anticipation of seeing him the next day.

"I'll meet you outside Sandrinos at half past twelve then."

"Great, I'll see you then," Phoenix replied, and Miles could hear him stifling a yawn. He had a sneaking suspicion that during the trials, he got far less sleep than he let on.

"Good night, Phoenix," Miles said quietly, setting the phone back down in its cradle. The feeling of anticipation hadn't left him yet, and he sighed.

He grabbed Phoenix's card from the table and put it back in his pocket, all the while mentally reviewing his clothes by suitability for lunch the next day. Lunch with Phoenix was definitely a start, if nothing else. Dinner had seemed too intimate, and drinks in the evening was longer than Miles wished to wait to see him again. Oh god, when a few hours made such a big difference, Miles knew it was worse than he'd thought.

When the last thing he thought of before he went to sleep was what on earth he was going to say when he saw Phoenix again, he realised this thing with Wright, whatever it was (or wasn't), was going to keep him here a lot longer than he'd originally planned.


End file.
